NPR: Airbnb Cuts 1,900 Jobs, 25% Of Its Workforce, As Pandemic Freezes Travel

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Airbnb says it's cutting 1,900 employees — about 25% of its workforce — in one of the largest layoffs to hit Silicon Valley as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

The global pandemic is the "most harrowing crisis of our lifetime," Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky said in an email to employees on Tuesday. The virus's devastating blow to the travel industry means the company's 2020 revenue is forecast to be less than half of what the startup pulled in last year, he said.

In an interview with NPR last week, Chesky described the challenge the virus presented to Airbnb, which is among the most valuable private technology companies in the U.S.

"You go from living year to year to month to month to week to week to day to day," Chesky said. "You go from having multi-year plans to figuring out how you're going to get to next Thursday because you can't even predict what the world is going to look like in two months."

Hundreds of startups have laid off a total of more than 30,000 employees since the outbreak took hold — and experts say the full extent of the coronavirus' toll on the technology sector remains untold. Airbnb, which employed 7,500 before the cuts and was last valued at $31 billion, is the latest high-profile tech company to buckle in the face of the virus.

In the interview, Chesky said Airbnb's future relies on his core belief that Americans will resume traveling, though when exactly and how traveling patterns will change is more uncertain.

"Traveling is not a trend that we rode. We didn't invent it," Chesky said. "There is a fundamental human need to explore. I think travel will be eventually much larger after COVID than before. It may take years."

 

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